Step Together
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Coach Taylor faces a new challenge when he and Tami are named guardians of her deaf, teenage cousin.
1. Chapter 1

The auburn-haired boy stands on the slightly cracked basement flooring, sliding his left foot to the left, and then following it with his right before sliding his right foot to the right and following it with his left. Then he rolls backwards on his heels.

Coach Taylor pauses on the last concrete stair that leads down to a dim basement lit by two bright, dangling fluorescent bulbs. A fan has been plugged into the far wall to generate some extra air because the largely windowless basement can feel a little stifling in August. He puts a hand on the wood railing and looks at the boy, who, between 8th and 9th grade, went suddenly from resembling the squat trunk of a solid oak tree to looking like a tall piece of skinny bamboo.

Coach Taylor waves his hand to capture the young teenager's attention and asks, "What are you doing, Liam?"

Liam steps back and bumps into the pool table. The formidable piece of furniture has replaced the ping pong table that Tami forced Eric to sell prior to their move to Philadelphia. After they returned from Julie's wedding, Coach Taylor immediately went out and purchased the pool table. He made a great production of setting it all up, going on and on about how he'd _always_ wanted a pool table, how he'd only bought the ping pong table because of Julie, and how now he could get whatever _he_ wanted, because he didn't have to make his daughter happy, because that was _Matt's_ job now. Tami stood watching him hang the pool cue holder against the wall and set out the balls and the triangle, shaking her head. "You have a strange way of consoling yourself, sugar," she said.

"Better than going through an entire box of tissues like you," he replied, and then jerked his head toward the table. "Play with me, babe." Then he grinned. "Remember that one time? In college?"

"Lord, Eric, that was decades ago, and I was much naughtier back then." But she walked coquettishly toward him and took the pole from his hand.

Liam now raises his hands to about the height of his chin. "Step together," he signs with his hands. "Step together. Step together. Rock back. I was practicing. Swing dance."

Coach Taylor adjusts his burgundy cap. It's a better shade of color than the one he had years ago in his brief stint at TMU – simultaneously darker and more vibrant. Franklin Academy has good uniforms at least. He was just hired by the school this summer, and this morning he had his first meeting with his assistant coaches. All two of them. Late try-outs are tomorrow and summer training will start in a week. It was an enlightening meeting that made him painfully aware of how many changes await him, and so he wanted to raid the basement beer fridge as soon as he got home.

Franklin Academy is a small, private school with a grand total of 206 kids in grades 9-12. He won't have to struggle with the painful necessity of cutting kids from the team anymore. He'll have to struggle to fill the ranks. But he accepted the coaching gig because Franklin Academy is the best high school for the deaf on the entire east coast, and they agreed to waive Liam's $25,000 annual tuition when Coach Taylor came on board.

The Taylors have only had Liam for three months now, and Eric is not yet fluent in sign language, but he's taught himself quite a bit in that short time, having thrown himself into the study of the language like a rookie at summer football camp. He'll have to learn more on his feet at Franklin. Most of the kids can read lips, but he'll have to understand them, and he'll have to develop a whole new set of coaching habits, ones that don't rely on the projection of his voice. How can you win at football without _sound_? He's still having trouble envisioning a mostly silent practice field and finds the practical restraints daunting.

"Swing dance?" Eric forgets his beer, steps off the stair, and comes to sit in chair just under the dry erase board, against the unfinished brick wall on the other side of the pool table.

_Get milk_, Tami has written in red dry erase marker on the white surface, just below a play diagram. _And flowers. It's been awhile._ "You want to be a dancer like your mother?"

The boy looks down straight at his feet and swallows. Coach Taylor tips his hat over his own eyes. He didn't mean to remind the kid, but he supposes when you lose your mom suddenly like that, you never forget it for more than a moment. Liam is Tami's second cousin. Or is the kid her first cousin once removed? Eric never can keep that cousin stuff straight, no matter how many times Tami explains it to him.

Anyway, Liam's mother was Tami's aunt's daughter, and Tami saw her once every few years at family weddings, funerals, and reunions. So it was kind of a shock when they put in an obligatory appearance at the woman's funeral only to discover they'd been named as guardians of a boy they hadn't seen in three years and with whom Eric had never exchanged more than three words at a time.

"Why us?" Tami asked that first night back in Phili, after Liam retreated to the guest bedroom that they will have to make his bedroom for at least the next four years.

"I don't know," Eric said. "Maybe because we're the only couple in your entire family with a functional marriage and a steady income?"

"Don't you start."

"Start what?" It was simply a statement of fact, but he should have known better.

Tami has always been sensitive about her family background. She was the first in her family ever to go to college, whereas both of Eric's parents went – his father on a football scholarship and his mother on an academic one. He certainly didn't grow up rich – his mother chose not to work after he was born, and his parents settled in a small Texas town - but he grew up comfortable and with high expectations for his future, with parents who more or less respected each other, even if they didn't quite love each other, instead of parents who broke glasses every Monday and threw things at walls every Wednesday and threatened divorce every Friday.

The first time he and Tami had a major fight after they were married, while he was a junior in college and she was a senior, Tami yelled at the top of her lungs, jerked her purse off the coffee table, knocked over a vase, ran out the front door, and slammed it hard, rattling the whole apartment. Eric followed her, grabbed her by the shoulders, whirled her around, looked her straight in the eyes, and said, "This is not how grown-ups fight. Get back inside."

She blinked, and then she followed. She had chosen a psychology major in order to understand her own family, but it wasn't until she married Eric that she really began to understand herself and to grow fully into the person she wanted to be. Years later, most people would never guess that she was anything but the calm, level counselor, but her husband and her daughters would be privy to her occasional flashes of passion.

Now Eric crosses his arms over his chest and waits for his…cousin-in-law?...to answer. No, he reminds himself. Not his cousin-in-law. His _son_.

Liam shakes his head. "Homecoming dance," he signs.

Coach Taylor smiles lightly, because he remembers the first time he asked a girl to a dance, in seventh grade, and what a horrid, messy knot his stomach was. Cynthia Johnson. A sweet, pretty girl he thought just might like him, and still it was all he could do to muster the courage. She'd said yes, and he still remembered his first, _real_ kiss that night. He doesn't think Liam has kissed a girl yet, but he doesn't really know Liam. The kid seems shy to him, but who knows how much of that is because he's just lost his mother. "Got a girl in mind already?"

Liam looks down at the floor. Eric can't imagine where he'd have _found_ a girl, since he's lived here only three months and hasn't started school here yet. Liam has spent most of his time alone in his room, in the counseling sessions Tami forces him to attend, or doing yard work silently beside Eric. ("I never know what to say to him," Eric told Tami one day when he came in for iced tea. "You don't have to say anything," she assured him. "He just likes being with you. He never had a father around, you know. And now…_I_ can't ever replace his mom. But I think he sees _you_…I don't know. Just be there, hon.")

Eventually, Liam looks back up and signs, "She'll probably say no. "

"Well you can't know if you don't ask, son. No pain, no gain." Coach Taylor stands from the chair and grabs a pool cue. He taps Liam's shoulder because the boy has turned away. When Liam's eyes are on his lips, he says, "What say we play a game, son?"

While they're playing, Eric asks him who the girl is, how he met her. Liam is reluctant to answer, but tells Coach Taylor that he rides by her house every afternoon. Eric forgot about the afternoon, hour-long bike rides. Liam's form of exercise. The kid has no interest in football, though Coach Taylor plans to change that. He'll need every body he can get on his team.

Liam says he helped the girl, a junior, when she was coming home from summer school and dropped a mess of papers that scattered in the street. Liam didn't speak to her, though, because he's embarrassed by the way he sounds when he tries. He just nodded when she said thank you. But he rides by and waves every afternoon when she gets home from summer school.

"An older girl," Coach Taylor says, with an atta-boy tone in his voice. The truth is, he thinks the age difference is unrealistic, not to mention the language barrier, but he also thinks a boy needs ideals. And Liam is a good looking kid, with those arresting blue-green eyes that ten-year-old Gracie calls "the world's prettiest boy eyes." And on the rare occasions when Liam can be made to smile, he has brilliant even white teeth and the sort of dimples girls adore. Sure he's a bit awkward and lanky at the moment, with that sudden height, but that will change. After an initial two months of grief-picking at his food, Liam's began wolfing down second and third helpings at dinner every night. If he keeps riding an hour a day, and Eric can get him to throw in some weight lifting, he'll solidify.

"She's out of my league," Liam signs.

"Well, Mrs. Taylor was out of mine." Sometimes the ideal trips and falls in your lap, like Tami literally did with him one afternoon in the cafeteria. She was a year older, and at the height of her young beauty, when he was pimply and still working on shedding that extra weight. True, it took him another full year after that stumble to get her to drop Mo and date him, but he'd succeeded.

"She still is," Liam signs, and that rare smile bursts out, lighting up his young eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Gracie doesn't look up from her spot when Liam comes into the kitchen, even though he taps his fingers on the table like _she's_ the one who's deaf. Her head is bent to her book, but out of her peripheral vision, she can see the older boy waiving hello.

She has to admit, Liam tries. He's friendly with her and, really, with everyone, which is surprising considering his mom got run over by a pick-up truck three months ago and he's living with practical strangers and he can't hear a thing anyone says to him.

For the first three weeks, Liam didn't bother to sign to anyone. If he was desperate to communicate – and usually he wasn't – he wrote on a notepad he carried with him. But then Mom and Dad showed him they were trying really hard to learn to understand him.

Gracie got the impression that even though he once had a mom, Liam had kind of learned to live on his own already. He just did his own thing most of the time, and Mom and Dad had to remind him that it was courtesy to tell them where he was going and when he was coming back when he left the house on that bike of his, which was one of maybe five possessions, other than his clothes, that he'd brought from California. They also had to tell him that he didn't have to fix his own solo dinner, that they would all eat together as a family, every night, or, at least, one adult would always be at the table, because sometimes one of them had to work late.

Gracie refocuses on the words as Liam opens the refrigerator door, but eventually her sight is drawn to him. He stands, his head a good six inches above the top of the freezer, whereas hers just barely rises above the bottom part of the fridge. She doesn't understand how her dad can be so tall when she was the shortest kid in her fourth grade class last year. It's not as if her mom is short, either, at five foot eight.

Liam's got the fridge door open and he's drinking orange juice straight from the carton, because he was apparently raised in a barn. Literally. His mom rented one on an old Californian farm that had been turned into a winery. She made bedrooms in the loft and used the bottom as a dance studio where she gave lessons to spoiled, rich Californian girls, or at least that's what Gracie imagines. She doesn't put herself in the spoiled rich girl category, even though her mom is a big time Dean of Admissions at a "sort of ivy but not the ivy" college and her dad is a high school head football coach and they live in a 3,000-square foot house and she and Liam are both going to private school next year. She doesn't put herself in the category because even though her parents make plenty of money, they've always _acted_ like they don't. When it comes time to ask for an iPhone you'd think they'd just barely managed to make the mortgage last month and that Mom had to spend an hour clipping coupons.

Of course, they got _Liam_ an iPhone. They said he's older and besides he _needs_ it. He's got all these special aps on it, like one that vibrates and flashes when it detects a loud noise, so, Gracie guesses, he doesn't get hit by a truck like his mom. Of course, his mom could hear and she still got hit by a truck. He's also got an ap that will record people speaking and transcribe the words into a written note, which he doesn't really need, because he can read lips. He's got an ASL dictionary on that thing, and a closed captioned video news ap, and she doesn't know what else.

All she gets is the prepaid cell phone, for emergencies. It doesn't have internet or even text messaging. Not that she has anyone to text message, really. She had a neighborhood friend two years ago, but the girl moved, and after a while she stopped e-mailing. She gave Gracie her phone number when she moved, but Gracie never called her. She hated to talk to people on the phone. It was even hard to talk to Julie on the phone sometimes. Gracie didn't know why, but she never quite understood when it was her turn to speak.

Gracie can tell Liam really likes her dad. He's always sort of hovering around Dad's edges, when he's not out riding his bike. Liam never met his own father, and doesn't even know his name. Gracie overheard Mom saying that Liam's mom didn't even know who the father was, and so Gracie had to ask how that was possible, which lead to a bunch of other questions, which resulted in Gracie learning pretty much everything there is to know about the birds and the bees. All from Mom, of course, because Dad sure made himself scarce fast when the real detailed questions started rolling in.

Gracie knows all about Liam not because she ever talks to him, but because she's been listening in on her parents' conversations ever since Liam moved in with them, wondering where she's going to end up in all this. She's taught herself some sign language, secretly, from a book and through the internet, even though she told her parents she wasn't going to learn it, that Liam wasn't _her_ problem. She wants to know what he's saying to her parents, after all.

When Liam catches her eye now she looks straight back down at her book. She hears the fridge close. The glass door that leads outside slides open. When it slides close, she looks up to see that Dad's out there, standing at the edge of the porch with a beer in his hand, surveying the yard, which needs trimming at the edges. He sets his beer down so his hands are free so he can talk to Liam. Because Liam's the one he talks to most of the time now. Dad's even changed jobs so Liam can go to the best school for the deaf. Franklin Academy. So Dand Liam will be going to school together every morning. Mom will drop Gracie off on her way to work, but Liam will have Dad all to himself.

Not that Gracie's parents aren't sending her to a good school for fifth grade. _Finally_. She's only told them she didn't learn _anything_ every year for the past three years. At least her parents _say_ it's a good school. Veritas Academy is supposed to be "challenging." Her mom loves that word, "challenging." Gracie needs to _challenge_ herself, she always says. Like she's her own game or something.

Gracie will have to learn a new language – Latin – and she'll have to catch up with the other kids who started learning it in fourth grade. She'll be assigned to read classic literature instead of all the stupid books they had to read in school last year, like _Diary of a Wimpy Kid_ and all those Roald Dahl books. Well, Roald Dahl isn't stupid. She likes Roald Dahl, actually, but, come on, she read all those books in first grade already. She's going to have to memorize and recite poetry too. She likes poetry, but she doesn't like the idea of reciting it. And sometime she'll have to do in front of the _whole_ class. Three times a year, she'll have to do recitations in front of the whole _school_.

When her parents took her to tour Veritas Academy, she wanted to crawl into a closet. All those kids standing up and chanting, reciting the history time line in unison, all projecting their voices, like they were trained actors or something.

But Mom says it will be good for her, that she can become a "learned extrovert" like her father. Dad apparently used to hate speaking in front of people too, and now he does it all the time, and he's totally okay with it. He's even okay with going to parties to "woo the boosters," well, if Mom helps him out and does _some_ of the talking for him. He can initiate and maintain conversations at all those parties, even if he has to "seriously decompress" when he comes home. He can be "on" when he has to be, Mom says, even if his hair stands on edge when someone unexpectedly interrupts a quiet evening at home. He'll even go to the Braemore cocktail parties with her, at least, every _other_ one. "It's true," he tells Gracie, "Sometimes you _will_ have to do social things you don't like to do. Especially if it helps your job or it's important to people you love. But you don't have to do them as _often_ as Mom thinks."

Gracie can _learn_ to be "on" too, Mom says, just like Dad did. For the most part, Mom knows when to give Dad his "introversion time." He has a "man cave" down in the basement, except apparently it's okay for Liam to creep in on "introversion time." Maybe because Liam can't talk. Maybe because he's a boy. Maybe because his mom just died. At any rate, the basement isn't by invitation only anymore, at least not for _Liam_. Liam's down there a _lot_.

Dad used to defend Gracie, saying, "Not everyone's the same, Tami. Maybe she _doesn't_ need to _learn_ to be _on_." But now Dad agrees Veritas Academy is the best place for Gracie, and even if he didn't, he'd probably be too busy with Liam to fight Mom about it.

"You'll like Veritas, Gracie," he insists. "You're just not challenged enough at your old school. And the regular public speaking part…it'll be good for you. Trust me on that one. That's a skill that can't hurt you, whatever you decide to do with your life. And the girls…I think maybe they'll be nicer. You know, because of all that emphasis on character education."

Gracie doesn't dare to believe that's true, because the stuff that happens usually happens when adults aren't around anyway. Most of the time she just ignores it and buries her nose in a book. And when she does cry, she tries not to do it in front of those girls, or even in front of Mom or Dad, because then they just worry, worry, worry…and they give her those sidelong _looks_, like they're afraid she'll never be a Mrs. Julie Saracen, light of the Chicago art parties, NPR talk show host, supportive wife, the daughter who _always_ had friends.

Dad's laugh penetrates the solid glass door. It's deep and low. Gracie wonders what Liam's done to make him laugh like that. She used to make him laugh like that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

As Tami enters the kitchen, she says, "Hey, sweetheart" to Gracie. The she turns the oven to 350 and opens the fridge to get the marinated meat out for dinner.

"Don't drink the orange juice," Gracie warns her. "Liam drank _straight_ from the carton."

Fridge door ajar, Tami turns and looks cautiously at her daughter. There was an angry edge in the way Gracie said those words. "Well, that's not very courteous," Tami says softly. "I'll talk to him about it." She takes out the meat and sets in on top of the stove.

While she's waiting for the oven to preheat, Tami looks outside where Eric and Liam are doing yardwork. Eric used to get behind in the yard work. The fact was a bit of a sticking point for Tami. "When am I supposed to do it?" he would say. "I don't have the time."

"Oh, I don't know," she would think, "How about _right_ now? Instead of watching _more_ football?"

But ever since Liam came, the yard has been pristine. Yardwork was the shared activity Eric discovered would allow him to spend time with the boy without the necessity of speaking , so he could just show Liam he was there and that he was going to _continue_ to be there. Side by side, silently, they would labor in the slightly cooler evenings, the crickets providing the only soundtrack, until at last they began to speak, pausing from the job at hand, Liam reading Eric's lips, Eric trying out his newly learned signs.

Tami was impressed by the way Eric threw himself, without complaint, into the sudden task of fathering her young cousin. She was bewildered to have been named guardian, and nervous about the new challenge, but it was Eric, who was not even blood related to the child, who stepped up and assured her they could do it, who quietly, steadily, patiently made the first real inroads with the boy.

The lawyer contacted them about the guardianship the Monday night before the funeral, and on Tuesday morning, on the way to the church, Eric swung by a book store and bought up every volume he could find on sign language. When they got back to Phili, he and Tami enrolled themselves in sign language classes. Though Liam was not his own son, Eric made for him the sacrifices that a good father would make for his own child. He left a comfortable position as a well-loved, three-time state champion coach at Pemberton High. He accepted a job that was bound to make him uneasy.

As Tami watches her husband now, trimming the high grass at the edge of the porch while Liam rips weeds from the flower bed to his left, she feels a wave of pride and affection swell up. After day in and day out of living with the same person and seeing his every flaw, after being subject to every common annoyance, after being pawed for sex at times when it happens to be unwelcome (and being pouted at when the refusal is politely made), after nights of broken sleep from light snoring, after gallons of milk not picked up and scores of trashcans that don't get to the curb on time, it's easy to forget why you fell in love with the man you married. But then life ironically, mercifully sends along the tragedies and challenges that remind you of who he is at his very core and of how lucky you are to share your life with such a man.

Tami is distracted by her thoughts when the oven beeps. After she has the chicken breasts inside, she turns her attention to Gracie, and notices that the girl keeps looking up from her book to watch Liam and Eric in the yard.

"Why don't you go out and help them?" Tami suggests.

Gracie's eyes dart back down to her book. "No thanks," she mutters.

Tami sits across from her daughter at the table, a four-person, light oak piece with distressed wood. Their kitchen is casual country style, and maybe it's the streak of obstinacy in her soul, but Tami would never have chosen it when she lived in Texas. Something about being on the east coast, however, made her suddenly want a touch of the south in her kitchen. "Do you want to talk, Gracie?"

Gracie does want to talk, but not, to Tami's disappointment, about her obvious jealousy. Instead, she jerks her head up from her book, and with accusatory eyes asks, "Why do I have to go to Veritas Academy anyway?"

Tami blinks. "You've been asking us to send you to another school for two years."

"I know, but why Veritas?"

"We toured a lot of schools, honey. Your father and I agreed it's the best match for you. And you know you're going to love the classical focus."

Last year, Gracie put together three pieces of poster board and carefully compiled a family tree of all the Greek gods and hung it on the wall beside her bed. "Is that a little peculiar?" Eric asked her, and Tami shrugged. Tami works with teenagers and young twenty somethings, and she isn't entirely confident she knows what normal is for an elementary school kid anymore. She doesn't read all the parenting books she once read with Julie. She isn't a stay-at-home mother anymore. She doesn't have the time, and, more to the point, she doesn't have the will. When she looks back on it, she sees that, in some ways, in those early years, she might have made Julie her career. She's taken a much more wait-and-see approach with Gracie, which could account for the fact that they didn't pull her out of her old school sooner. Gracie's always been a little peculiar, but Tami could see a kid from Veritas Academy joining in her in a Greek-God-tree-making exercise.

"Yeah," Gracie concedes, "but all that public speaking!"

"It's _not_ that much," Tami reasons. "And it mostly involves group unison, specifically so you _don't_ have to stand out. It's all about getting you _comfortable_ with that sort of thing. No one expect you to be an actress or a social butterfly, Gracie. But there will be times in life when you have to step out of your comfort zone, and we don't want that to be so painful for you."

"So, what, you're forcing me to be in pain so I _won't_ be in pain? "

Tami sighs. "It's like a vaccine, Gracie. You get a little bit of the virus, so when the real thing hits you…it's not as bad."

"Well, that's not _precisely_ how vaccines work, Mom."

"I'm sure you get my point." Tami leans toward her daughter, and in a voice of conspiratorial confidence says, "I do understand that in some ways this is going to be hard for you, but I also believe that in some ways it's going to be _easier_, because you'll be with people who have more of the same interests as you, and you'll be able to make friends more easily."

"What if I don't _want_ friends? Dad doesn't have any friends, and he's fine."

"Dad most certainly does have friends." Tami says it decisively, but in truth, Eric has acquaintances. Workmates. _Allies_. He rarely "goes out with the guys." His social functions involve church pot lucks (where he stands mostly to the side and lets people approach him), Tami's Braemore cocktail parties (which he abhors), and booster functions (during which he networks and talks shop).

"He's says _you're_ his best friend."

"Yes, so he _has_ a best friend, see. Not everybody needs a lot of friends. I understand that, Gracie. I _do_. But everyone needs _a_ friend."

"Well, Dad's my best friend." Gracie toys with the pages of her book. "We _used_ to do a lot of stuff together, anyway."

"Gracie, I know your dad's been busy lately, and I'm sure he'll make more time for you soon. But even when he does, you have to understand. He's your _father_. He's not your pal. We both want you to be able to talk to us about anything, but at the end of the day, we're your _parents_. And that's different than a friend. And I just think you're going to like this school a lot better than your current school, once you give it a chance. And maybe the girls will be kinder to you there."

"Why do you and Dad keep saying that? How would you know?"

Tami had a sit-down with the Veritas school principal and the school counselor (who doubles as school nurse) and also asked to observe recess one day. She approved of the methods in place to resolve conflict and encourage tolerance among peers. Gracie's been through a bit of bullying at her old school, probably more than she's told them about. Tami feels guilty that she wasn't aware of it earlier, that she was so caught up in work that Eric had to bring it to her attention last year. She's dropped one of the committees to which she used to belong in order to make more time for Gracie – and Liam - this year. "It's a feeling I have."

"Oh, that's _real_ logical, Mom."

"Don't use that tone with me, Gracie."

Gracie's face flushes, her apologetic blush.

"I'll tell you what," Tami says. "Give it a year. If you hate it, we won't renew the contact, and we'll find another school."

On the last words, the sliding glass door opens and Eric comes in. "What's that?" he asks.

Tami repeats what she just told Gracie. "Do you agree with that?"

"Sure," he says. "What's for dinner?"

Behind him, Liam enters and slides the door closed.

"Chicken," Tami says, and then waves to get Liam's attention. "Liam, sweetheart, could you not drink out of the carton in the future?"

Liam appears confused.

"It's just, we use glasses here. And you're welcome to take one any time you want."

Liam, looking embarrassed, nods. He shoves his hands deep into his pocket. As he leaves the kitchen to wash up for dinner, Tami thinks he narrows his eyes at Gracie.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"Sit with me," Tami insists as Eric closes the dishwasher.

He sighs. It's not that he doesn't enjoy connecting with Tami over a bottle of wine (and especially the _other_ connection that often follows), but her words do not appear to be a friendly request. And that means she probably has a matter of a business to discuss with him. Or, worse yet, she plans to inform him of some small way he has failed her as a husband.

He's not in the mood for either possibility, especially since he finally found Franklin Academy's game tape, which the last coach misplaced. The man was a disorganized mess, and Franklin hopes a new, experienced coach who has brought two teams from nothing to the State Championships might build up the Falcolns, if not to a championship, at least to a reasonable level of self-confidence. Franklin dedicates more money to sports than your typical private school, believing as they do that sports are especially important for integrating their students into larger society. Eric is not the first hearing teacher they've ever hired, but he's the first hearing coach.

"Eric," Tami says when he stays standing against this dishwasher. "Let's have some wine."

He looks about the kitchen as if scanning for reinforcements, but Gracie is in her bedroom reading as usual, and Liam has also retreated to his room to work on a summer assignment. When they enrolled the boy in Franklin Academy last month, Liam was given a packet of material. Eric grumbled that it was ridiculous to ruin a kid's summer with homework and that a boy's summer should be for earning some extra cash and playing sports and working up the courage to talk to girls, while Tami argued that Liam was entering high school, and learning was a life-long, year-round proposition, and maybe managing his time well enough to complete _one_ research paper and a few math problems wouldn't kill him.

Dutifully, but not with a scowl, Eric assumes his spot at the kitchen table and pours the wine his wife sets out.

Tami looks at him with that counselor gaze of hers and starts speaking in that calm, counselor tone, which, frankly, aggravates him more than if she just said, "Hey, idiot! Listen up!"

She tells him, "You're spending a lot of time with Liam, and it's great that you two have started to connect and that he'll actually talk to you about some things. But I think it's important that you're careful not to forget your other child."

"I haven't forgotten Gracie. Gracie Belle Taylor. Ten years old." He raises his wine glass and takes a deliberately long sip and puts it slowly back down on the table. "See, I know her name and age and everything. Imagine that."

Ignoring his sarcasm, she continues evenly, "I appreciate that you stepped up to take in my cousin, and not just take him in, but that you even accepted a difficult job for his benefit. You're a good man, Eric." He hates it when she does this. Softens him up for an easy knock out. "You've been so selfless about all this, and so honorable."

She picks her words well. _Honorable_. He can feel the pride creeping up. Her admiration still means a hell of a lot to him, even more than it did when he was nineteen.

"But…"

Ah…he knew it. Here comes the _but_

"…now that Liam is beginning to adjust, I think you need to return some of your attention to your daughter."

"I pay plenty of attention to my daughter."

"When was the last time you took her on one of your daddy-daughter dates?"

He shifts in his seat and fidgets with his wine glass. "Not that long ago," he mutters.

"It was before Liam was here," she tells him. "Eric, keep in mind that Gracie was basically an only child before Liam arrived. This is a _major_ adjustment for her." When he doesn't say anything, she continues, "Remember that time years ago when you told me Julie was jealous of the attention I was giving Tyra?"

"You mean that time you just blew me off?"

Tami purses her lips, but then she regains her calm composure. "Well," she says, "you were _right_. And I _shouldn't_ have blown you off. I should have considered what you were saying _sooner_."

He takes another slow slip. "Glad you can admit that."

She levels her eyes straight at him, as if she's waiting for his admission.

"Gracie and I are fine," he insists.

Tami lets out a long, exasperated sigh, grabs the bottle by its neck, and says, "I'm finishing this wine alone in my bedroom. With a book."

"_Our_ bedroom," he reminds her as she struts from the kitchen.

She pauses in the entryway, and with her back to him, says, "You're being defensive at the moment, but I know how this works. I know you." And then she keeps walking.

What's that supposed to mean? He doesn't think about it long. Instead, he thinks, _Finally_. _Game tape time._

**/FNL/**

Fifteen minutes into the Saints vs. the Falcolns (that is, Philadelphia Christian Academy vs. Franklin Academy for the Deaf), Eric pauses the game tape. He leans forward in his recliner and studies the frozen image.

These Falcoln kids are small. Late try-outs are next week, and then summer training. There better be some bigger kids than this who show up. At least he's got Liam. The kid's skinny, but with some weight lifting and the way he's been eating lately, he'll fill out. That bike riding he does for over an hour a day won't hurt him either.

Eric looks at the paused picture again and rubs his eyes. They aren't just a small team, size wise. They're small in number. There are only nineteen kids on that entire team, on bench and field combined. At Pemberton, he had forty-six. How is he going to cycle through a team of nineteen? He's going to have to do some serious recruiting.

The Franklin Falcons are ranked second to last in their division, but that's not the thing that most worries Eric. He's pulled teams up from rock bottom before. It's that he has no idea how he's supposed to coach deaf kids. Everything he's ever done will have to change. Oh, he's been told about all the work arounds, and he's studied the color-coded sideline board system, but he's sure his old habits will die hard. Very hard.

He rewinds the tape and starts to watch it again, but he can't focus. He's not just concerned about his new job. Tami's words are bugging him, because, _as usual_, she's right. _As usual_. Not _as __**always**_. That's an important distinction.

Eric clicks off the television, pops his recliner closed, and tosses his note pad on the coffee table. He begins to make his way upstairs towards Gracie's bedroom.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Gracie was still nine when Liam came to live with them, but last week she turned ten. Double digits. It frightens Eric. His first child made him feel suddenly older, as if he aged ten years in six months. Yet Gracie slowed down time for him, rebooted life, delayed all thought of end goals. She was like an unexpected time out, just when you thought the game was almost over.

It was hard enough to imagine Julie growing up and branching out, but when Gracie goes, it won't just mark her maturity, but his own…well, why not just say it?...decline. As long as Gracie Belle's in the nest, he's still young.

There's another reason double digits frightens him. The teen years are double digit years. Gracie's just _that much_ closer now. Although his eldest daughter has matured by leaps and bounds in her new life, he has not forgotten the hell Julie once put them through, the wild, curving maze of unexpected choices. After shrugging off a loyal and respectable boyfriend to chase the Swede, committing adultery with one of her T.A.'s, totaling her car, failing to return to college when she said she would, and getting engaged with absolutely no warning (he didn't even know she was dating Matt again), Julie has found her place in life. She and Matt have been married four years now, she has her B.A., and she's the only reason Eric ever turns off sports radio in the car.

Every Monday and Wednesday morning, Coach Taylor makes the sacrifice of tuning his radio to NPR. Julie is the host of _Books and Things_. The _things_ is politics, as far as he can tell. Julie pokes around her guest's edges and ruffles them a bit, but she interviews them in soft tones while she's doing so. She speaks in a voice that is largely foreign to Eric and that sounds much more like Tami in counselor mode than his old Julie asking for the keys to the car. It's strange, that someone could be more or less dependent upon you for eighteen long years, and then …suddenly….one day…you could hear her on the radio and almost think you were listening to a peer.

In her teen age years, Gracie Belle will probably pose a completely different set of obstacles than Julie did, for reasons of both personality and appearance. Gracie will always be Coach Taylor's princess, but the cold truth is that she isn't pretty like Julie or her mother. Puberty might yet change that in some ways, but at the moment the girl is quite plain.

One time, when Eric picked her up from school, he overheard some other girl smirking and calling her "ugly" to a chorus of minion-like snickers. He wanted to get out of the car and strangle that girl with the jump rope she was holding, but instead he pretended he didn't hear it, because he didn't want to be one of _those_ fathers either - you know, the kind who strangles nine-year-old girls with jump ropes.

Gracie pretended she didn't hear it too, and Eric could see she was trying her hardest not to show it, her jaw clenched tight and her face almost quivering with the repressed tears, but four minutes from the school, she broke down crying. He pulled over in a grocery store parking lot and told her she was beautiful over and over.

"I don't know if it helps," he told Tami later that night, "if it isn't really true, you know, by the world's standards."

"It helps," Tami reassured him. "Every little girl needs to be told she's beautiful by her father. I wish _mine_ had told me that. Maybe in high school I wouldn't have tried so hard to get so many boys to tell me."

"Well, at least Gracie will attract the less shallow kind of guys. The kind that care about character and intelligence more than appearance."

"Like you, huh?" Tami quipped. "Because the first thing that attracted you to me was my character and intelligence, right?"

"No," he admitted, "but that's what _kept_ me attracted. Twenty-seven years. That's a long time to talk to one woman just because she's pretty."

Gracie will be fine, they assure each other, but they're worried. It isn't just Gracie's plainness that threatens to make her a bit of an outcast – it's her bizarre intelligence, which outstrips that of either of her parents and sometimes leaves them feeling helpless. Gracie was the youngest in her fourth grade class last year, and she was in the most advanced math and reading groups, but she was still bored. She constantly got in trouble for reading under her desk throughout the school day, until eventually the teacher judiciously chose to ignore the fact.

As far as Eric could deduce, there were two group of girls in Gracie's class – the ones who mocked her, and the ones who felt bad for her but ignored her because they didn't want to become the object of mockery either. Tami tried to sit Gracie down and talk to her about it, but Gracie was reserved. When Tami suggested talking to her teacher and maybe even some parents, Gracie was mortified.

"You need to back off a little," Eric told her. "She's afraid you'll make things worse. No kid wants to be perceived as the one who's mommy comes in to the rescue." They argued about it, and although Tami didn't exactly "back off," she slipped behind the scenes. She stopped pressuring Gracie to talk about it, while still being there for her, keeping a watchful eye, drawing things out of her subtly, communicating with the teacher, and considering future options.

Finally, about the same time they got Liam, after which Gracie became even more withdrawn than usual, they settled on Veritas Academy, which they hope will challenge her mentally and boost her social self-confidence.

"Look at us," Eric muttered as he wrote the deposit for Gracie's school. "We're all private school people now." Franklin. Braemore. Veritas. "I never thought we'd be _that_ type."

"You never thought we'd be east coast people either, sugar."

"We're not," he insisted. "We're just…good at adapting when we have to."

With a sharp decrease in their rate of savings, they can afford Gracie's new school. What they can't afford is _two_ private school tuitions, so the bonus of waived tuition was enough to draw Eric to Franklin. He knows this is the right thing to do, but he's never felt more nervous about a job in his life, not even that very first teaching and assistant coaching gig straight out of college. Despite his glass case of trophies and all the state rings, he's not sure he can really succeed as a coach of deaf kids.

He could lose the job after a season or two, if he does nothing to improve matters. Franklin can get someone cheaper to lose, after all. And then how will they afford the outrageous tuition for Liam?

"They don't want you only to win games, you know," Tami told him. "That's not why they hired you. They're _looking_ for a molder of men. They want someone who can give these boys confidence in a world where they'll always be different."

"Maybe," Eric said, "but they want me to win too. As they should."

And how did he motivate kids without locker room speeches, anyway? It was never his words, really. It was the _way_ he said them. The voice. The tone. Could he communicate that confidence, that idealism, that pride, that desire to see them become their best - without sound?

On top of the job, he's worried about Liam, about measuring up as a father to a ready-made teenage boy. There are things he'll have to deal with that he didn't have to worry about with Julie, and he hasn't had years to work up to them. He's worried about Gracie, her future, her friendships. He's worried about finances, too, with the possibility of eight years of private school for Gracie before them, and two more college tuitions to help with.

All of these thoughts are ping-ponging through his mind as he leans in the open door frame of his daughter's bedroom and asks her what she's reading.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Gracie looks up as though she's surprised to hear Eric's voice. Not an I didn't-see-you-there surprise, but a sort of pleasantly surprised surprise. "_The Scarlet Pimpernel_," she answers.

Eric has a vague recollection of the book. Julie, who was pretty advanced, didn't read it until eighth grade, he thinks, and he only remembers it at all because she went on and on about how _romantic_ the Scarlet Pimpernel was, literally kissing the ground his wife walked on, or something wildly unbelievable like that. No wonder girls went into marriage with ridiculous expectations. Thank God he married Tami, who, for the most part, knows what to ignore and when to forgive, but also how to hold her ground when it matters.

"Want to go to the movies with your old man Saturday afternoon?" he asks. "I'll be done with my meetings by one. What do you want to see?"

"You don't have to do something more important with Liam?"

Eric walks into the room and eases himself down on the edge of Gracie's bed. The mattress shifts with his weight. "Gracie." He doesn't want to scold, but he can't help the tone in his voice. "Look, Liam – "

"- I know. His mom died. He's deaf. I know. I'm lucky. My mom's alive. I can hear."

Eric doesn't like her tone. It already has too much of the teenager in it. Of course, when it comes to correcting the factual inaccuracy of her parents, she's had that tone since she was five. He got used to being talked down to by his elementary school kid when it came to the origin of words or mathematical properties or Greek and Egyptian mythology, but this is too much. His mouth sets in a grim scowl, yet he controls his instinctive response. Tami's voice hovers, somewhere in the back of his mind, telling him there is a time for everything under the sun…a time to scold…and a time to empathize. Tami, right, as _usual_. So he asks, as casually as he can, "So, movies?"

"Can we go the Franklin Institute instead?"

"Uh….okay. Any particular reason?" She's been there at least six times in her life already.

"They have a new travelling exhibit on Ancient Egypt."

"Sure." He doesn't know what to say next.

He misses the days when she would crawl in his lap and he would read to her. She'd let him read just about anything back then. He almost asks if she wants him to read to her now, but how foolish would that sound? She's been able to read anything she wants for four years. So he tells her good night and kisses the top of her head.

When he gets into their bedroom, Tami is asleep, her book fallen and half open on the floor, the wine bottle on her night stand, with only a glass left.

He changes for bed, picks up her book, and sets it on the night stand. Then he pours the last glass of wine into her glass for himself, grabs the remote off of his night stand, and flips on the TV. He settles onto the bed, propped up by pillows, and begins flipping through the channels.

Two decades ago, Tami fought him on allowing a TV in the bedroom. She said she'd read an article that people slept better if they reserved the bedroom only for sleeping.

"What about sex?" Eric asked.

"Well, sex is an exception."

"We also read in bed."

She stood firm, but damn if he was going to compromise on that one. He fought her tooth and nail, and the TV made its way into the sacred space. Only a month later did he realize how little she _really_ cared, and that she had perhaps deceived him into cashing in one of his scarce, we're-doing-it-my-way chips on a non-issue.

He settles on a documentary on the history of American sports. The narrator is talking about baseball now, but it's only a matter of time.

Tami stirs, rolls onto her back, removes her reading glasses, and puts them on her night stand. She turns off the lamp and the room is bathed only in the glow of the television. "Hey," she mutters. "How late is it?"

"Early," he replies. "Not even nine o'clock. Want to fool around?"

She makes a noise like he's just suggested a feast of brussel sprouts and lima beans, and then she rolls on her side, back to him, and pulls the blanket up to her neck.

"Hey, Tami, honey, you know how you told me to let you know if I ever thought you were drinking too much wine?"

"I had two glasses," she murmurs half into her pillow. "If I were drinking too much wine, my tolerance would be a lot higher, and a mere two glasses would _not_ make me this tired."

"I think you had three, but point taken." He lifts the wine glass he's resting on his thigh and sips from it. He wonders if telling her he took her advice and talked to Gracie will increase his odds of getting laid, which currently stand at zero. "Hey," he whispers as he peers over to look at her, but she's already asleep again.

He returns his attention to the screen.

Still baseball. This _entire_ documentary might be about baseball.

He switches the channel several times until he lands on a very old rerun of _Pawn Stars_. Someone has brought an autographed football into the store. This ought to be good.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Tami sits on the short bench before her vanity and brushes the thick hair that billows over her shoulders, frowning at how many gray strands have begun to creep in this past year, and wondering if she should start dying it. The new burgundy Flacon's T-shirt Eric brought home for her yesterday clings to her chest, and she's chosen to wear her most comfortable gray sweat pants. In her mirror, she watches Eric close the bedroom door softly and lock it.

He always locks it, ever since that time a six-year-old Gracie walked right in on them. Back when that happened, Eric froze on top of Tami and reached behind himself to yank the blanket up as high as he could without surrendering his position. Undaunted by the sudden movement, Gracie came right to the bedside and asked where "Mommy's lipstick" was. Tami, breathing a little heavy, told her to grab it off the master bathroom sink and go back to bed.

"Why are you on top of Mommy?" Gracie asked on her way out, lipstick in hand.

"We're cuddling!" Eric barked. "Shut the door on your way out!"

Gracie did, and Eric immediately started moving again, but by then Tami had lost interest, processed her daughter's request, and could only say, "Wait, why does she need lipstick? And at midnight?"

Gracie knows not to enter a room without knocking by now, but Eric still locks the bedroom door every night. He doesn't look like he's hoping for sex at the moment, however. He looks weary.

They haven't talked all day. When Tami got home from work, he was just leaving to go out with his two assistant coaches, who were taking him for a drink and to give him some tips on understanding "deaf culture."

He takes off his cap and throws it on his tall dresser before unlatching his watch and putting it beside the cap. Then he pulls off his shirt.

The brush stills in her hair. He's started exercising more these past three years, secretly afraid, she thinks, of middle age. He's not vain about it, but he's determined. She tells him he doesn't have to work so hard, but the truth is, he looks _good_.

Tami pulls the brush slowly through her hair and continues to watch him in the mirror as he drops his pants. Green-and-black plaid boxers will be his PJs tonight. He peels off his socks, picks up all his discarded clothes, and tosses them haphazardly in the vague direction of the laundry basket that sits on the floor of his closet. He misses of course, but at least she doesn't have to share a closet with him anymore. She can simply shut the door later and not have to look at any of it.

His feet pad across the plush, brown-and-tan flecked carpet of the floor. Tami lowers her brush to the table and closes her eyes when his hands fall on her shoulders and he begins to knead.

"That's nice, sugar," she says.

"I meant to tell you this last night, but you were out cold." His fingers dig gently into her muscles. "You were right and I was wrong. I've been preoccupied lately with Liam and the new job and improving my sign language, and I've been having trouble connecting with Gracie. Tomorrow afternoon I'm taking her to the Franklin Institute. Just her and me."

"I think that's a good idea, hon."

He continues his massage. It's slow, as if he doesn't have much energy.

"You all right, hon?" she asks.

He sighs. "I'm really worried about coaching these deaf kids."

She swivels around on the bench and looks up at him, a hand resting gently on his hip. "It's a challenge. But you've never balked in the face of a challenge before. Look what you did with the Lions. With the Pioneers."

"This is different. This is…I don't what the hell I'm doing, Tami."

One of the first things that attracted Tami to Eric was his easy confidence. He seemed so sure of himself without at the same time being cocky. It was a confidence born of hard work, self-respect, and a subtle but innate romanticism. Only after they'd been dating for almost a year did she begin to unearth the secret self-doubts and realize just how much he needed someone to build him up and how little his own parents had.

Tami's family had been a hot mess, but he'd had his own set of less obvious problems. Her parents had no expectations for her, while his had unobtainable ones. She wondered, sometimes, if it wasn't almost harder for him…she could rage in rebellion against her parents' condemnation of her, but he lived damned under a faint praise in which he was never _quite_ good enough.

She stands up now and takes his hand and leads him to bed. They settle in side by side and she strokes the fine, dark stubble on his cheek. She loves the rough feel beneath her fingertips. She presses her body against his, kisses his lips, and then pulls away to look into those expressive, hazel eyes, which so often search hers for approval. "I _know_ you," she says. "You _will_ rise to the occasion."

He smiles and then lets out a low chuckle. "I'm already starting to."

"Oh, Lord, Eric," she says, miffed that he can be so simultaneously masculine, vulnerable, _and_ juvenile. But she can't help laughing. She slides her hand down his bare chest, tickling him and making him squirm as she goes, until she reaches his boxers. She skillfully unfastens the two buttons on the flap and eases her hand inside to stroke him slowly, teasingly.

His eyes clamp shut and his voice grows raspy as he mutters, "Damn, Tami."

She kisses his cheek and whispers in his ear, "You're so tense. I want to relax you, sugar."

"You do?"

"Mhmmmmm…."

**/FNL/**

Half way through the lovemaking Eric starts drawing play diagrams on the dry erase board of his mind, hoping it will distract him enough from the perfect feel of Tami's body, from the slow, excruciating way she moves her hips as she straddles him, from the little, satisfied, feminine noises she makes that send violent shivers through his nerves. He somehow manages to hold out until she takes her pleasure, bending her head down over his shoulder and silencing the sound of his name with a muffled cry into the pillow.

When she draws her mouth back away from the now damp pillowcase and catches her breath, he asks, his voice thick with wanting, "My turn?"

She smiles that wicked smile that thrills him every time he sees it and asks, "You want to stay like this or shift positions?"

He doesn't answer with words, but he slides her off himself and rolls her onto her stomach, and it's not long before he's shuddering above her. He stays there for a while, propped up on the flats of his hands, trailing breathless kisses across the back of her neck and down her spine, before he rolls off and to his side. She turns on her side too and snuggles face to face with him.

"Thank you," he whispers.

"I love that you always say that after sex, as if I'm giving you a gift."

"You are." He nuzzles her cheek.

"Well, you know, I get a little something out of it too."

"A _little_ something!" he protests in mock offense, until her kisses have him smiling again. He can feel himself already drifting off and murmurs his apology.

"No. Sleep, sweetheart," she says. "God knows you need it, as stressed out as you've been lately."

"I love you." He lets his eyelids fall completely closed.

"I love you too."

"Even if you're out of my league?" he asks, his eyes still shut.

"What?"

"The other day Liam said you're still out of my league."

"Eric, sugar, we've formed our _own_ league."

The last thing he feels is her soft lips on his shoulder, and the tickling sensation of her hair somewhere against his chest, and then sleep overtakes him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Gracie can't sleep. She's too excited about going to the Franklin Institute with Dad tomorrow. This is the first time he'll have taken her some place alone in months. Well, other than the grocery store.

She knows Dad's going to be kind of bored, probably, but not as bored as she is at the football games, and she goes to those all the time. She can tell him everything she's learned so far about Ancient Egypt, and he'll listen, because he always does, even when he's not interested. This is going to be so much fun.

But right now she can't sleep, so she makes her way to the kitchen for a drink. Not the orange juice, since Liam chugged that straight from the carton yesterday, the barbarian.

Barbarian isn't really the best term, she knows. Barbarians were just what Romans called everyone who wasn't Roman, you know, the Germans, Celts, Persians, whatever. Barbarians didn't necessarily drink orange juice from cartons. A lot of them wrote poetry. She's pretty sure Liam's never written a poem in his life.

When Gracie steps in the kitchen, there's a dim glow from the light over the stove, but everything else is bathed in darkness. She stops immediately with one foot on the tile when she hears the guttural sob and sees Liam sitting at the table, his back to the entryway, his body heaving.

He's crying. Like, _really_ crying. Like she did in the car that day after those girls kept calling her ugly, and she tried not to, and she hoped Dad didn't overhear them, but then she just broke down, and then Dad lied to her and told her she was so, so, so, so beautiful, like all the so's made the lie better. That's not what Mom said. She said beauty is in the eye of the beholder and everyone has different aesthetic tastes and Gracie would find those girls' opinions didn't matter at all a year, two, three from now and that everything that seems huge right now won't seem quite so huge when she's twenty-five. But twenty-five is ancient. Julie's twenty-five.

Maybe it's because Liam's deaf and can't hear himself that the crying sounds so loud and so strange, or maybe it's because she didn't expect to walk in on this.

Gracie just stays frozen on the tile, trying to decide what to do. She thinks of tip toeing back, but why would she have to? He can't hear her. Even so, she instinctively steps quietly backwards, until she jabs her side on the corner of the counter and shouts, "Owww!"

Liam's phone, which he's lain on the table, catches her voice and flashes light, because of that ap he's got. He looks down at it and then turns back to her. He wipes his sleeve across his eyes, hastily and with obvious embarrassment.

"It's okay," she says. "I didn't see anything. I mean, hear anything. I mean. Okay, I did. So you're crying. So big deal. I do it." She means to turn and leave the kitchen but instead for some reason she steps forward.

Liam's face is all smeared and blotched. He swallows, then he turns his face away. She sits down at the table across from him, slowly, like this is all happening in a dream. It's not like her, but she does it. She doesn't know what else to do.

Liam's hands start flying angrily. He's shouting in signs. He's saying it isn't fair, how his mom died. He's saying he wants to wake up from all this, like it was a nightmare. He's saying Uncle Eric (that's what he calls Dad, even though he's not an uncle) expects him to try out for the Falcons but he doesn't want to.

Liam signs that he just wants to punch someone sometimes, just to punch someone, because none of this is fair. It's weird when people talk to themselves (she knows, she's been told when she's done it), but it's even weirder when they do it in signs. Gracie doesn't recognize a lot of the signs, and thinks maybe some of them are swear words. Finally, when he's done with his angry monologue, he signs, "Good thing she doesn't understand any of this."

"Oh," Gracie says, "I understood lots of it."

His eyes fixed on the lips he's reading, Liam's hands fall to the table. "Waahhh?" he says.

It's the first time she's heard him talk since he's been here.

"Waaah?" he repeats.

"Yeah," she says, "I've been teaching myself sign language. Don't worry. I won't tell anyone about all the crying. And the not wanting to play football thing? Yeah, Dad's not going to take it well. But you know what? He'll get over it _eventually_. Just don't expect him to get over it _right away_."

She stands up and opens the fridge. "Did you drink out of the milk jug too?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Gracie takes her dad's hand and tugs as a small sea of people parts around them. "Come on, Dad! Let's go see the new exhibit. Ancient Egypt!"

"Don't you want to go in there?" he asks, pointing to the Sports Challenge exhibit. "It's just like a mini stadium. It's got astroturf and its own blimp and everything."

"Dad, I've been in a stadium before. _Lots_ of times. I've never been to Ancient Egypt."

"Yeah, but it's all about the physics and physiology of sports. You like science."

"Not as much as I like Ancient Egypt. Come on!"

He lets himself be led by his daughter but looks wistfully back as he goes, half-making out a sign that says **"**Sideline Science: Football" and wondering what it entails. "I think they have some new exhibits in there too," he says.

"Dad!"

He nods his assent and works his way to the Ancient Egypt exhibition with her. This day is Gracie's. Besides, he can impart his love of football to Liam now. Judging from last year's game tapes, he's guessing he'll make Liam quarterback. They've tossed the ball around a bit. Liam's got a lot to learn about football in general, and he's little on the light side, but the kid is quick and can already aim better than anyone on that team. He's starting to gain, and when Eric puts him on a weight lifting regimen, the muscles will follow.

He's already been told that the try outs are something of a formality. No one who shows up gets turned away, and no one ever gets cut from the team except for reasons of character. When he was first told that, he balked. He thought it meant Franklin was one of _those_ schools, you know, where everyone's a winner, so no one's prepared for real life. He started to protest but was quickly put straight. If they don't have at least eighteen people, they don't meet the requirements to play, and last year, the team only had twenty, and one kid ended up expelled two weeks into the season. Try outs will be for deciding positions, but not for deciding who gets _on_ the team.

"I don't get it," he told one of his assistant coaches last night. "Why don't more kids try out? Sure, it's a small school, but there must be at least 100 boys, total, in grades nine through twelve."

"They're hesitant," Coach McKinney signed. "They're competing against larger schools, for the most part, with bigger kids, who can _hear_."

Eric turned his beer on the bar. "Has the administration ever considered _requiring_ they try out? You know, as a P.E. requirement?"

Coach McKinney laughed and then said, "Oh, you're serious, aren't you?"

"They say they care about sports, that they want to use them to prepare these kids for the world. They put a lot of money into the football program." They're paying _him_, after all.

"Ah…" McKinnery said, wiping a spot on the dark cherry bar with his cocktail napkin. "That's what you think. They _talk_ the talk, yes. But you've got to understand, most of our funding actually comes from _one_ booster. He's our quarterback's dad."

Well, Eric thought, that explained one thing that had puzzled him on the game tapes last night. He didn't think #6 should be in that position. The guy was on the slow side. He was planning to put Liam there instead, or 14, depending on how the try-outs went. Liam could be QB2 at first. Of course, everyone was going to have to be prepared to play more than one position.

"Former NFL guy," McKinney continued. "His son will be graduating this year, and after that, he'll keep contributing for _a while_ I'm sure, but…at a lower rate, and eventually, he'll phase it out. We'll have to drum up support. So unless you turn this team around, Eric…" He shrugged. "I honestly don't see us even having a football program in two to three years."

Eric's trying to forget that conversation now, to forget the immense pressure he's under and concentrate on his daughter, who begins half her sentences with "Did you know…" He tries his best not to seem distracted.

When they've gone through the entire institute, including, in the end, even the sports exhibit, they hit a nearby restaurant for an early dinner.

"I'm worried about going to Veritas," Gracie admits to him.

"I know. I'm worried about going to Franklin. Trust me, I know how you feel. New environment. Don't know what to expect."

Gracie squeezes her lemon into her water. "Mom's worried I don't have any friends. You are too, aren't you?"

"I know what it's like to be introverted."

"Yeah, but you have no idea what it's like to be _**shy**_, do you?"

"Not really." He's not sure Gracie's shy, exactly, so much as bored with most people, but he doesn't argue the point with her. Maybe she _is_ shy. She does decline to make eye contact when she's talking to almost anyone but family, but that's usually because she's got her eyes glued to a book. "Listen, Gracie, no one expects you to be a social butterfly, not your mom, not me, not anyone. But…we just want you….to be able to…" He sighs. "We want you to be happy. No one expects you to become some sort of –"

"- Talk show host? Like Julie?"

"Exactly." Eric closes his menu and looks at his daughter. "You need to talk to people at your new school Gracie. You need to _try_. You don't have to be a social butterfly, but you need to talk to _someone_. _Sometime_. You can't…" He scratches the back of his neck. Can't what? Rely on him to keep her company forever? He can't say it that way.

"I talk to people. I talked to Liam last night."

Eric's hand falls to the table. "Yeah," he says. "Really?" If those two could manage to get a long, it would sure bring him a lot of peace. Not that they fight. They just ignore each other for the most part.

"Uh-huh."

"What did you talk about?"

"Ancient Egypt," she says, and then the waitress is at her side, and when the conversation picks up again, it's all about the preservation of mummies.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Gracie and Liam are lounging on the living room couch, watching a nature documentary on closed caption TV, and they can see Coach Taylor there in the foyer, getting ready to head out the door. Coach Taylor pops his burgundy cap in and then out with his fist before situating it on his head. The fidgeting gives the hat a bit of a crease, so it doesn't look quite so new. It's still fairly stiff and crisp, no mud splatter anywhere, because summer training hasn't even started. Today he's holding summer try-outs.

Gracie remembers the old dark green Pioneer cap, faded to a kind of olive in spots, permanently sweat stained in one place toward the back. Mom says Dad never coached a team for more than three years in a row before the Pioneers. He'll stick with the Falcons for at least four years, though, as long as Liam is in high school, because they can't afford the tuition without the waiver. Franklin Academy costs more than twice as much as the private school they're sending Gracie to. "As much as Harvard," Gracie heard Dad grumble, and Mom replied, "Harvard is actually fifteen thousand more." Then Dad muttered, "Holy sh…." Before noticing Gracie and ending with "..shucks."

Mom expects Gracie to get into Harvard or Princeton or the University of Pennsylvania or one of the other ivy leagues one day, and so she's been socking away money like crazy. Dad says Gracie should just go to Penn State, because it's one-third the price and there's "no sense paying for a brand name" and "the thing with education is you get out what you put in" and plus he'd really like to buy some land and build a cabin "down home" in Texas, for winter vacations and if he ever retires from coaching.

Dad adjusts his belt. Then he adjusts his cap before digging into his pocket for his car keys, which he swirls through three times before settling on the truck key. Gracie realizes that when he told her he was worried about this new coaching gig, he wasn't just trying to relate. He wasn't pretend sympathizing with her over starting a new school. He was telling the truth. He _is_ nervous. _**Damn**_ nervous, as he would say (and then scold Gracie for using the word an hour later). He was with the Pioneers for _years_. He got comfortable. "Maybe a little complacent," Gracie heard Mom tell him once, when they were discussing the change. "Maybe the Falcons will be good for you, sugar." The Pioneers were familiar. And they could hear. That's the main thing. They could hear. It must have been hard for Dad to leave the Pioneers. But he did it for Liam. _Of course_.

Gracie's checks her jealousy. She doesn't envy Liam as much as she did just a few days ago. She got a glimpse of his pain and that kind of makes it hard to resent a guy. Plus they've been "talking" lately, the past couple of days. She's starting to think maybe it wouldn't be so horrible to have a big brother after all.

Liam catches Gracie's eye as Coach Taylor opens the front door, flinging back these words to his adopted son: "See you later at the try-outs."

As the door clicks shut, Liam's blue-green eyes grow wide.

"You haven't told him you're not trying out?" Gracie asks. "He _thinks_ you're biking over to the school later?"

Liam swallows and Gracie shakes her head. "Dad doesn't do well with surprises. Mom threw a surprise birthday party for him when I was six. It didn't go over that well. They ended up arguing under the punch table about who she invited."

Liam shrugs and Gracie continues, "I'm telling you. You should have told him before he left for try-outs. It wouldn't go over well, but it would be better than you just not showing up. Dad likes people to be totally upfront."

"Not about everything," Liam signs. "Your Mom has to be subtle with him sometimes."

At least Gracie thinks he means subtle. "Mom? Subtle?" Gracie laughs. "You'll see." Gracie rises from the couch and goes to the hall closet, where she grabs down her bicycle helmet. She hates that Mom still makes her wear a helmet. She doesn't insist Liam wear one. But there's a double standard for Liam, of course. "So, that thing you wanted me to help you do? Are we doing it or what?" Gracie's slides on her pink and white helmet and clicks the strap. The thing fits way too snugly. She's not the same little girl she was when she finally learned to ride a bike on their suburban cul-de-sac, two years behind her peers, at the age of almost seven. She'd long preferred books to exercise, and her father had to cajole her to ride.

Liam rises, alarmed. "Now?" he signs.

"Now or never, Romeo."

She looks back to read his hands: "Do you even know who Romeo is?"

"Sure. I watch the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio on Netflix." She's also read it, but she doesn't want to sound like a show off. Well, she read a "plain language" version of it, anyway. Not the _actual_ play. But Mom says she can probably tackle Shakespeare by seventh grade.

"Aren't you afraid to do it?" Liam signs. "Because you're" – she doesn't quite know the last gesture he makes, but she's guessing it means shy.

"A little. But she's totally older than me." She's older than Liam, too. He's going to be a freshman, and this girl's going to be a junior. What makes Liam think this girl will ever go to a homecoming dance at another school with a freshman is beyond Gracie, but whatever. A guy can dream. Not that he's asking her today. He's just trying to get himself introduced. Move the whole thing beyond smiles and waves. "It's not like I have to go to school with her. Or that I want to be friends with her. Or that I'll see her hardly ever again." She tilts her helmet back a little. "Besides, I want to help you out, believe it or not."

They ride their bikes over to the street where the girl lives. Liam knows this is the hour she comes home from her morning summer school class. He seems to have second thoughts and starts pedaling by, but Gracie comes to a dead stop just before the girl's driveway, forcing him back.

Suddenly, Gracie's confidence drains from her. The voice coming out of her sounds distant. "Hi," she half whispers. "I'm Gracie. I live a couple blocks down?" Was that a question? She clears her throat. "This is my cousin Liam."

Liam is studying the stray grass growing up through the cement in the cracks on the driveway.

"Hi," the girl says, a little bit of caution in her voice, but still friendly. "I'm Cindy." Silence all around. Cindy shifts from one foot to the other. She's quite pretty, with this really thick long brown hair Gracie would love to have and eyes kind of like Dad's, a whole bunch of colors all at once – eyes Gracie wish she had inherited, instead of her boring blue. The girl's also a little nerdy looking, though, with those glasses she's wearing, bigger than Gracie's, not the fashionable ones Mom got her. "Did you…want something?"

"Umm…." Gracie stammers "Liam's deaf." Liam glares at the abrupt way she says it. "So he can't really talk." Her words are coming out fast, super-fast now. "But he's great at mowing lawns. So if you want him to mow your lawn, he'll totally do it for you, because he thinks you're – " Liam kicks her lightly in the ankle "uh…in need of lawn mowing."

Cindy looks at her lawn. "_I_ mow the lawn. I think I do a pretty good job. What looks bad about it?"

Liam's hands start flying. Gracie translates: "It looks great. Just, if you want more time for studying, I thought I could help. I know you're in summer school."

"I'm not stupid," Cindy says. "I'm trying to get ahead. I want to graduate at the end of my junior year. I'm tired of high school."

"Me too," Liam signs, but Gracie doesn't translate, because he's not even in high school, so how could he be tired of it? Instead she says, "That's cool."

The awkward exchange goes on for a while, until Liam finally gets the lawn mowing gig, but when they get back to the house, his head is hung pretty low. "I'm an idiot," he signs. "It was stupid to try to talk to her. I _can't_ even talk to her. I'll be lucky if I can get a deaf girl to go to homecoming with me."

Gracie doesn't say anything, but Liam's kind of good-looking and, she thinks, totally not dumb. He's nice enough. He shouldn't have any problem getting a classmate to go to the dance with him. But it would be really gutsy to ask a hearing girl from another school who's two years older than him. It was gutsy just to do what they did today.

What _they_ did. _Gracie_ was gutsy too. She puts her helmet on the shelf in the hall closet and smiles.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

Tami Taylor doesn't drink whisky on weekdays, and she doesn't drink wine before three in the afternoon. But it's after four thirty now, so she's cracked open a cool bottle of Chardonnay. Philadelphia summers are nothing like Texas summers, but she's lived here for long enough to adjust to a new weather pattern, and it _feels_ hot. She had a morning meeting and then did a little gardening in the back yard. She was never much of the gardening type in Texas, but she's taken up the hobby here; it allows her a quiet, reflective break from her busy career and the constant hum of sports tape inside.

But now she has some paperwork to do, so she's opened her laptop, filled her wine glass, and taken up residence at the dining room table. The dining room opens onto the living room, and she can see Liam and Gracie there, standing between the couch and the coffee table, playing the Xbox. Gracie has to put down the controls every now and then to sign an explanation of the game to Liam.

Gracie likes video games more than your typical girl, which has always surprised Tami, since she's such an intellectual sort. Then again, these games today are complex in their story lines and involve a lot of problem solving, and maybe they make Gracie feel less lonely. Except today she's not alone – Liam is playing with her, and Tami's glad to see that the kids seem to be hitting it off. Maybe Liam will be seamlessly integrated into the family. In two years, Gracie will think of him as a brother.

Tami sips her wine and sets it down. "Liam didn't go to try outs?" she asks, projecting her voice across the short distance between the two rooms. She can't ask Liam directly, because she's behind him at the moment.

Gracie turns her head back in the direction of the dining room. "He's not interested in playing football," she says and returns to her game.

Tami raises an eyebrow. Eric was clearly under the impression the boy was trying out, and she wonders how he took it when Liam didn't show up. Try-outs should be about over by now and Eric should be –

The front door swings open. They can all hear it, except Liam, who continues playing. There's a slam and then the stomp of feet and then keys hitting the coffee table. Coach Taylor takes the controller out of Liam's hand and tosses it on the couch. "Where were you?" he asks when he Liam's attention is on his lips. "Did you get suddenly sick? I thought you were riding your bike over later."

Liam doesn't hold Eric's gaze as he signs, "I never told you that."

"Well, that's a'ight, son. Come on down with me now. We can extend the try outs. My assistant coaches are still there." He only has two assistants, volunteers, with no stipends.

Liam shakes his head lightly while Gracie watches. By now, Tami is in the living room, and she notices how flustered her husband looks. She knew he'd be disappointed by Liam's choice, but he looks more than disappointed. His hair is arrayed as if it's being drawn to some stress magnet. Every nerve in his jaw is tense, and a single line jumps. He's wound tighter than on the morning of a State Championship. It shouldn't surprise her. In the past few months, he's started a new job, learned a new language, grappled with a new way to play an old game he used to know like the back of his hand, enrolled his daughter in a new school, helped Matt and Julie avoid foreclosure on their house, moved his mother to Phili and put her in a home for Alzheimer's patients, and found himself a new father to a new son. It hasn't precisely been an easy three months.

"Son, go on and get in the truck," Eric says.

Liam is barely looking at Coach Taylor when he replies, "I don't want to play football."

"Why the hell not?"

"I never played really," Liam sings. "Other than tossing the ball around with you. I barely know the rules."

"Well you can learn them," Eric says. "Rules are the easy part. We'll watch some more games, I'll talk you through."

"I don't know how to – "

" - You'll learn. That's what practice is for. You'll learn."

"I don't want to try out."

"Liam, I've seen you run, and I've seen you jump, and I've seen you catch a ball." They'd tossed one around enough over the summer. "And I know you'll be a good player. Probably one of the best on the team."

Liam shakes his head.

"Maybe quarterback one day."

Liam shuts fast his eyes. Tami can see he's not having this argument. He stands, there deaf and blind to what's going on around him.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Eric shouts. Liam must sense the vibration of the sound, because he shuts his eyes even tighter. "I swear to God, son, you _are_ trying out, or we're not paying for you to go to school."

"Eric! What is _wrong_ with you?" Tami's eyes are a hot blue. Eric can be brusque, she knows, and he can say and do things he later regrets, but in the end, he's a good father. She wouldn't expect him to drag Liam kicking and screaming into his interest, let alone to make such a threat.

"Tami, this doesn't concern you."

She takes her husband by the elbow and steers him outside onto the back porch. The grass is growing high along the wooden stair case that leads down to the yard and against the house. Eric's been studying sign language, learning the adaptations for the game – he hasn't had time to edge.

He rips his hat off his head and throws it over the porch railing and onto the grass below. Then he leans with his palms flat against the rail, pushing himself forward and back, like a drunken man trying to decide whether or not to vomit over the side of a ship.

"Eric!" Tami says, "you _cannot_ say that to him. How could you possibly think of telling him we wouldn't pay for his school if –"

He pushes himself up right, whirls, and faces her. "Because I won't have a job if he doesn't join!"

Eric is breathing hard, in a way she's only seen him breath after running.

"Do you know how many kids came to try outs?" he spits. "Seventeen. That's it. I had no choice but to take every single one of them. But do you know what the minimum is to field a team? It's not 17, Tami. It's 18. If I don't get one more – I don't even have a goddamn team!"

Tami crosses her arms over her chest, a posture of both irritation and forced patience. She's waiting for him to calm down.

"If I can't come up with one more player, they're just going to cancel the program and let me go. No tuition waiver. Where the hell are we going to find an extra $20,000 a year to spend on _high school_? After the money we gave Matt and Julie to get them out of trouble?"

The kids needed two mortgage payments when Julie got laid off, to avoid foreclosure. Reluctantly, and after exhausting every other avenue, Julie asked her parents for a loan. Eric and Tami insisted it was a gift.

"After what it costs to pay for Mom's home?" Eric's mother has some income, but they're footing the rest of the bill for the nursing center. "And Gracie's tuition." He takes in a deep, shaky breath. "I know I didn't handle that right. You don't have to tell me. I know that. But I don't have a team. And when I quit my other job, you know I burned some bridges." He'd been itching to say some things, for years, to certain boosters. He'd loved his job, but there were thorns in his side.

"You signed a contract with Franklin. They can't just – "

"There's a…clause. I didn't…I maybe didn't read all the fine print."

"Eric!"

"All either of us heard was tuition waiver. Best school for the deaf on the entire east coast. That's all _either_ of us heard."

"You'll fill the team, Eric. It doesn't have to be Liam. You'll –"

She stops because Eric's breathing is growing even raspier. He grabs at his burgundy polo shirt at the front of his chest. It crumples into a ball in his fist.

"Hon? You okay?"

"Daddy?" Gracie has opened the screen door. Liam looms above her from behind. His eyes, wide and worried, are fixed Coach Taylor. Eric's slumped against the porch railing now, holding onto it for support, gasping as if he can't catch his breath.

"Gracie, honey," Tami says, "call 911."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **Okay, this chapter is short, but I didn't want to leave that last chapter's ending hanging for too many days just because I hadn't written a second scene for this chapter yet.

**Chapter Twelve**

Tami digs her keys out quickly from her purse and maneuvers around Coach Taylor to open the front door, but he blocks her with his body and shoves his own key in the lock.

"I think I can manage to open a door, Tami."

The door glides on its hinges and hits the door stop with a small thud and a bounce.

Liam shoots through the opening between Coach Taylor and the frame and clatters upstairs to his room. Gracie eyes her father warily as she, too, slides inside and heads to the living room to grab a book she left on the end table and curl up in the arm chair.

Coach Taylor sighs and steps inside. He can feel Tami following him to the kitchen, where he tosses his house keys in the crystal, heart-shaped candy dish they use for that purpose. Tami won't keep candy in the house, because Gracie has a terrible sweet tooth.

Eric slides his hand in the left pocket of his khaki shorts and feels the cylindrical container. The pills rattle lightly. His broad shoulders are slumped as he walks to the fridge to grab a beer.

"You're not supposed to drink on your new medicine," Tami tells him.

"One beer, Tami. One beer isn't going to kill me." He pops off the bottle cap, puts the opener back in the drawer, and slams the drawer shut. He takes a long draught and begins walking to the master bedroom.

The beer bottle lands with a clink on the vanity of the master bath, and both of his palms go flat down on the faux marble by the sink. He stares at himself in the mirror, studies the light gray fuzz flecked throughout his stubble.

"Lord, Eric." Tami is hovering in the door frame. "You act like you'd rather have had a heart attack."

"Coaches have heart attacks," he says. "Mac McGill had a heart attack."

Mac had his second last April, fatal this time, and they flew to Texas for the funeral, a reunion of sorts. That was the third funeral they had attended in nine months. This is what it means to be middle-aged, he supposes. What was that term Tami used last week? The sandwich generation – kids still at home, relying on you, but Mom to take care of too, with weekly visits that involve walking down halls beneath the lingering scent of piss and bleach only to say, again and again, "Eric. No, Ma. It's Eric."

He rubs his fingertips over his stubble and lets his hand fall again.

"There's no shame in it, Eric."

He slides the bottle of Xanax out of his pocket and sticks it in the medicine cabinet, turning the label so it's not facing outward.

"You've been under a huge amount of pressure, sugar."

So has she, but she didn't end up in the hospital with a panic attack. Not Tami. He picks up his beer and sips again.

"Hon, take one of your pills and go lie down for a bit."

"I'm not taking a pill."

"Hon—"

"The doctor said _as needed_, Tami." He finishes off the rest of the beer in one long swallow. A thin wisp of foam paints the bottom of the bottle as he sets it down. "I don't need one right now."

"You better take them when you do."

"I will. I _like_ breathing, believe it or not." He slides past her, but he doesn't head for the bed.

"Where are you going?" she asks when his hand is on the knob of the bedroom door.

"To talk to my son."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Coach Taylor stands outside of Liam's door and rubs his face, the bristle of his coming black-and-gray beard rough against his palms. He didn't shave in the hospital. Tami prefers smooth cheeks most of the time, even if she finds his five o'clock shadow masculine. He'll shave tonight. He does what he can to please her. He has so many people to please. His boosters. His employers. His daughters. And now…he has a son.

Eric isn't twenty-two anymore, the way he barely was when Julie was born. He thinks time and experience and maturity should have made him a better father, the way it made him a more natural and confident coach, but he just feels tired and slightly powerless right now. He knows he said the wrong thing to Liam, that he let everything get to him - the weight of Gracie's private school tuition, of her future college tuition, of the mortgage, of the job he must hold to guarantee Liam's tuition, the weight of the self-respect he will lose if he loses this job.

It's not the first time he's done the wrong thing as a parent, let a word slip he wished he could take back. He was determined to be a better father than his own, to never cut his children down with his words, or lose his patience and rage, the way his father too often had. But no one ever told him how hard it would be, how parenting would drag all of his pettiest flaws beneath a microscope, test his patience, dredge up the natural bad inclinations he'd inherited and force him to fight them. No one ever told him about the heavy load of responsibility, about how he'd never be quite his own again.

He raises his hand and raps on the middle of the door before he remembers Liam can't hear. This is tricky because you sure don't want to just throw open the bedroom door on a teenage boy. Tami already walked in one evening when she needed to ask Liam a question about his schedule and caught him looking at porn on the computer. She said nothing, instantly turned around, closed the door, and cluttered down the stairs to the kitchen, where she promptly told Eric he had to "have a serious and thorough conversation" with the boy.

Tami prepped her husband, told him how he needed to talk about a hundred things – body image, stereotypical media portrayals of women, the history of feminism – Eric didn't know what all she said. He wasn't really listening. He just nodded. Sometime that was the best way to deal with Tami. He was a good listener most of the time. He prided himself in that. His father had never really listened to his mother, had never seen her secret pain. Eric was a different husband. But there was a point when even he had to tune out his wife.

The actual "serious and thorough conversation" did not go as Tami planned. It was considerably more concise and contained no actual back-and-forth discussion. Eric just took a deep breath, strode into the room, and got it over with quickly, like jumping into a cold pool. "You know porn isn't realistic, right?" he announced. Liam's head was bent. The boy concentrated on Eric's lips without looking into his eyes. "You can't expect real women to act like what you see in this stuff," Eric continued. "Keep it to a minimum. If you use it too much, you could develop bad habits. It might make you less disciplined. Less attentive and responsive to the needs of a real woman." Liam stood motionless. "And it really bothers some women. If you ever get yourself a serious girlfriend, you should respect her feelings about that. Because she'll be real. And real is better. You don't want to mess up real." Liam looked away. "A'ight then." Eric tapped the boy's chin to get him to read his lips again. "Don't forget to lock your door in the future." And then he left.

After that, Eric ducked into the tiny, fourth, so-called bedroom they'd turned into a library at the end of the hall and hid out there for fifteen minutes, so Tami would think the conversation was longer than it actually was. By the time he got back downstairs, she'd already crawled into bed. He liked having the master on the first floor. It put them on another level than the kids; gave them their own little realm at night. Tami was sitting up in bed, reading glasses perched on her nose, her long hair billowing over her shoulders, a book open in her hands. He didn't notice the title. He just noticed how sexy she was, even if she was only wearing an almost decade-old Lion's T-shirt. He shed his polo and pants so that he was just in an undershirt and boxers and crawled in next to her.

"How did the conversation go?" she asked.

"Perfect," he said. "He's been properly educated."

She snorted a little. "And did you talk to him about – "

"- Tami," he said firmly, "I handled it."

She looked at him skeptically and closed her book, setting it on the night stand. "We need to put filtering software on his computer."

"You can't really escape this stuff, babe." He leaned back against the headboard. "I mean, these kids have iPhones. Honestly, I don't know how they concentrate in class. Every teenage boy is walking around with an X-rated theater in his pocket. I at least had to _work_ for my porn. I had to bike all the way down to the creek, where the Playboys were jammed in the hollowed-out tree…These kids today. They don't have to work for _anything_. Not even sex."

Tami slid off her reading glasses, snapped the ends shut, and laid them on the night stand next to her book. "You didn't have to work for sex. Not after you had that growth spurt and became quarterback."

"I did with _you_," he said somewhat petulantly. It had been a little aggravating, because, from what he'd heard, none of the other guys she'd dated had been required to work very hard at all. That's wasn't _why_ he had dated her. They'd been friends first. He'd already been half in love with her when she was still seeing Mo. But he hadn't understood her sudden purity when she'd finally agreed to go out with him.

"Because you were the first boy I _**really**_ liked, Eric. And I wanted it to be special. And you made me want to change, you know. To realize my full potential. That was _you_."

"Yeah. Yeah."

She snuggled up close to him and kissed the edge of his lip lightly until he smiled. "I've heard you tell your players that a goal is more meaningful and satisfying when you have to work hard to obtain it."

He kissed her forehead and said, "It was pretty satisfying when I finally did obtain it."

"The best you ever had," she said with full confidence.

"Nah."

"What?" she jerked back and glared at him.

He smirked. "Not that _first_ time. It got _better_." He wiggled an eyebrow mischievously. "It's better now."

"You want sex don't you?"

Well of course he did. He couldn't remember too very many nights of their long, married life that he'd been in bed beside her and _not_ wanted sex. But it annoyed him when she put it that way, as though that was _all_ he was after.

When Tami was pregnant with Julie, she made them start going to church. Eric didn't mind. It's what you did in Texas. Tami thought it was important to have a community, a network when the baby was born. Besides, First Methodist had Parent's Night Out – free child care once a month. Eric had daydreamed through the sermons most of the time, going over playbooks in his mind. But he did remember one particular Father's Day sermon. The pastor had asked, "What's the best thing a man can ever do for his kids?" Because Julie had just recently come into his life and turned it upside down, his ears perked up a little, even though he expected the predictable – pray with them, bring them to church, blah, blah. But instead the pastor said simply, "Love their mother. The best thing a man can ever do for his children is to love their mother."

_Loving_ Julie's mother was an easy thing for him to do. _Showing_ it wasn't always as easy. He'd shown it when he'd moved to Phili for her, and that had been one of the hardest, scariest things he'd ever done in his life. He almost _hadn't_ done it.

He wanted sex, certainly…but he wanted to _love_ her.

"I want _you_," he said.

She pushed one of her legs between his and kissed a sensitive spot at the base of his neck. "Show me," she whispered.

That was two months ago. Lately, though, they haven't been having as much sex. The stress has been getting to him. He doesn't try for it as often. But that's not his concern right now. Right now, he needs to talk to Liam.

He didn't think anything could be more uncomfortable than that former "conversation" about porn, but the apology he has to make now is more daunting. The shame he feels – it's caught in his chest, like a breath that won't come out.

He grasps the door knob and rattles the door in the frame, hoping Liam is looking towards it, will see it move, or sense the vibrations. Tami suggested some kind of light doorbell or something. He's been meaning to rig something up.

As he shakes the door hard one more time, the knob slides from his hands and the door swings open. Liam stands there before him. God but that kid got tall over the summer. He's almost eye to eye with Eric.


End file.
